check before: 2025-09-15
Product:
Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Viva Engage, Teams
Platform:
mobile, Online, World tenant
Status:
Change type:
Admin impact, Feature update, Updated message, User impact
Links:
Details:
Summary:
Microsoft Viva Engage is updating Community Announcement notifications to use a smarter, behavior-based delivery system. Users will receive notifications through their most engaged channel first, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. Rollout begins mid-September 2025, completing by January 2026.
Details:
Updated January 23, 2026: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction
We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements.
When this will happen
General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect the rollout to reach GA (General Availability) by February 6, 2026 (previously end of January).
Change Category:
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Scope:
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Release Phase:
Created:
2025-08-28
updated:
2026-01-24
Task Type
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Docu to Check
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MS How does it affect me
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MS Urgency
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MS workload name
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summary for non-techies**
Microsoft Viva Engage is updating its Community Announcement notifications to use a system that adapts to user behavior by sending notifications through the most frequently used channel, such as Teams, Mobile Push, or Email, and switching channels if the notification is not opened, while still allowing urgent announcements to be sent through all channels.
Direct effects for Operations**
Notification Delivery Changes
Users may miss important announcements if they are not engaged with the selected notification channel, leading to potential delays in receiving critical information.
- roles: Community Admins, End Users
- references: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/01/23/announcing-microsoft-viva-engage-a-new-way-to-connect-and-engage-with-your-organization/
User Confusion
Without prior communication about the change, users may be confused about why they are receiving notifications differently, leading to frustration and decreased user satisfaction.
- roles: End Users, IT Support Staff
- references: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/01/23/announcing-microsoft-viva-engage-a-new-way-to-connect-and-engage-with-your-organization/
Increased Notification Fatigue
If users receive notifications through a less preferred channel first, it may lead to increased notification fatigue, causing users to ignore future notifications altogether.
- roles: End Users, Community Admins
- references: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/01/23/announcing-microsoft-viva-engage-a-new-way-to-connect-and-engage-with-your-organization/
Configutation Options**
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Opportunities**
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Potentional Risks**
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Data Protection**
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IT Security**
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Hypothetical Work Council Statement**
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DPIA Draft**
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explanation for non-techies**
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** AI generated content. This information must be reviewed before use.
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change history
| Date | Property | old | new |
| 2026-01-24 | MC Last Updated | 12/04/2025 23:26:10 | 2026-01-24T01:40:12Z |
| 2026-01-24 | MC Messages | Updated December 4, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect the rollout to reach GA (General Availability) by end of January 2026. | Updated January 23, 2026: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect the rollout to reach GA (General Availability) by February 6, 2026 (previously end of January). |
| 2026-01-24 | MC End Time | 03/02/2026 09:00:00 | 2026-03-09T09:00:00Z |
| 2025-12-05 | MC Messages | Updated November 20, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect the rollout to continue in the coming few months. We will share an update on the final GA date once that becomes available. | Updated December 4, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect the rollout to reach GA (General Availability) by end of January 2026. |
| 2025-12-05 | MC How Affect | Previously, when an admin created a new Community Announcement, this would send a notification in Teams and Mobile Push immediately, followed by an email notification two hours later if the announcement was not opened already in Teams and/or Mobile Push. With this new update:
Users will now receive the notification in one channel only-either Teams, Mobile Push, or Email. This notification channel may differ by user and is selected based on where a user has opened Engage notifications most frequently in the past 30 days. If the announcement is not opened within two hours in the first notification channel, a secondary notification channel will be sent, also determined by where a user opens Engage notifications most frequently. We will continue to respect all user notification preferences and settings where applicable. If a notification channel is disabled or the app is not installed, it will not be selected as a potential notification channel for the Community Announcement delivery. Note that this change applies only to regular Community Announcements in Viva Engage and does not affect the "immediate" Community Announcement feature (where admins can still select the checkbox to send emails immediately -this functionality remains unchanged). Can I still notify Community users via email immediately (along with other notification channels)? Yes! In Viva Engage, we offer an option to send an "immediate" Community Announcement. With this feature, Community admins can choose to send email notifications immediately after posting a Community Announcement, even if a user has opted out of receiving emails. All other notification channels will also send immediately along with email, including Teams and Mobile Push. Therefore, we recommend admins to use this feature when there is a Community Announcement that requires immediate attention from users. Community Admins can find this "immediate" Community Announcement option by firstly navigating to the announcement publisher and selecting the hyperlinked "option to send emails immediately" at the bottom of the publisher. Upon clicking this option, an additional pop-up box will open called "Immediate email delivery". By selecting this checkbox, this will ensure that all three notification channels - Email, Teams, and Mobile Push - will send to customers immediately after a Community Announcement is made. What you can do to prepare No admin action is required. However, we recommend: Informing your users about the new notifications change to reduce confusion Monitoring user feedback and engagement with Community Announcements' notifications delivery Reviewing internal communication strategies to align with the new notification's behavior Compliance AreaExplanation Does the change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed?Yes. Notification delivery logic now uses user behavior data (last 30 days of notification engagement) to determine delivery channels. This data is used to personalize delivery but is not stored permanently. Does the change introduce or significantly modify AI/ML or agent capabilities that interact with or provide access to customer data?Yes. The system uses behavioral data to determine the most effective notification channel, which is a form of machine learning-based personalization. Does the change provide a new way of communicating between users, tenants, or subscriptions?Yes. The change modifies how users receive communications (Community Announcements) by introducing a dynamic, behavior-based delivery method. | Previously, when an admin created a new Community Announcement, this would send a notification in Teams and Mobile Push immediately, followed by an email notification two hours later if the announcement was not opened already in Teams and/or Mobile Push. With this new update:
Users will now receive the notification in one channel only-either Teams, Mobile Push, or Email. This notification channel may differ by user and is selected based on where a user has engaged with Engage notifications most frequently in the past 30 days. If the announcement is not opened within two hours in the first notification channel, a secondary notification channel will be sent, also determined by where a user engages with Engage notifications most frequently. We will continue to respect all user notification preferences and settings where applicable. If a notification channel is disabled or the app is not installed, it will not be selected as a potential notification channel for the Community Announcement delivery. Note that this change applies only to regular Community Announcements in Viva Engage and does not affect the "immediate" Community Announcement feature (where admins can still select the checkbox to send emails immediately -this functionality remains unchanged). Can I still notify Community users via email immediately (along with other notification channels)? Yes! In Viva Engage, we offer an option to send an "immediate" Community Announcement. With this feature, Community admins can choose to send email notifications immediately after posting a Community Announcement, even if a user has opted out of receiving emails. All other notification channels will also send immediately along with email, including Teams and Mobile Push. Therefore, we recommend admins to use this feature when there is a Community Announcement that requires immediate attention from users. Community Admins can find this "immediate" Community Announcement option by firstly navigating to the announcement publisher and selecting the hyperlinked "option to send emails immediately" at the bottom of the publisher. Upon clicking this option, an additional pop-up box will open called "Immediate email delivery". By selecting this checkbox, this will ensure that all three notification channels - Email, Teams, and Mobile Push - will send to customers immediately after a Community Announcement is made. What you can do to prepare No admin action is required. However, we recommend: Informing your users about the new notifications change to reduce confusion Monitoring user feedback and engagement with Community Announcements' notifications delivery Reviewing internal communication strategies to align with the new notification's behavior Compliance AreaExplanation Does the change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed?Yes. Notification delivery logic now uses user behavior data (last 30 days of notification engagement) to determine delivery channels. This data is used to personalize delivery but is not stored permanently. Does the change introduce or significantly modify AI/ML or agent capabilities that interact with or provide access to customer data?Yes. The system uses behavioral data to determine the most effective notification channel, which is a form of machine learning-based personalization. Does the change provide a new way of communicating between users, tenants, or subscriptions?Yes. The change modifies how users receive communications (Community Announcements) by introducing a dynamic, behavior-based delivery method. |
| 2025-12-05 | MC Last Updated | 11/20/2025 18:11:25 | 2025-12-04T23:26:10Z |
| 2025-12-05 | MC End Time | 01/30/2026 09:00:00 | 2026-03-02T09:00:00Z |
| 2025-12-05 | MC Summary | Microsoft Viva Engage will roll out smarter Community Announcement notifications starting mid-September 2025, delivering alerts via one preferred channel based on user behavior, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate multi-channel email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. No admin action is required. | Microsoft Viva Engage is updating Community Announcement notifications to use a smarter, behavior-based delivery system. Users will receive notifications through their most engaged channel first, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. Rollout begins mid-September 2025, completing by January 2026. |
| 2025-11-21 | MC Last Updated | 09/04/2025 22:26:57 | 2025-11-20T18:11:25Z |
| 2025-11-21 | MC Messages | Updated September 4, 2025: We have updated the timeline and content. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect to complete the rollout by early November 2025. | Updated November 20, 2025: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect the rollout to continue in the coming few months. We will share an update on the final GA date once that becomes available. |
| 2025-11-21 | MC End Time | 12/31/2025 09:00:00 | 2026-01-30T09:00:00Z |
| 2025-11-21 | MC Summary | Microsoft Viva Engage is updating Community Announcement notifications to use a smarter, behavior-based delivery system starting mid-September 2025. Users will receive notifications via their most engaged channel first, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. No admin action is required. | Microsoft Viva Engage will roll out smarter Community Announcement notifications starting mid-September 2025, delivering alerts via one preferred channel based on user behavior, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate multi-channel email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. No admin action is required. |
| 2025-09-05 | MC Messages | Updated September 3, 2025: We have updated the timeline and content. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect to complete the rollout by the early November 2025. | Updated September 4, 2025: We have updated the timeline and content. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect to complete the rollout by early November 2025. |
| 2025-09-05 | MC Last Updated | 09/03/2025 23:22:22 | 2025-09-04T22:26:57Z |
| 2025-09-05 | MC Summary | Microsoft Viva Engage will roll out smarter Community Announcement notifications from mid-September to early November 2025, delivering alerts via one preferred channel based on user behavior, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate multi-channel email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. No admin action is required. | Microsoft Viva Engage is updating Community Announcement notifications to use a smarter, behavior-based delivery system starting mid-September 2025. Users will receive notifications via their most engaged channel first, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. No admin action is required. |
| 2025-09-04 | MC MessageTagNames | Feature update, User impact, Admin impact | Updated message, Feature update, User impact, Admin impact |
| 2025-09-04 | MC Summary | Microsoft Viva Engage will roll out smarter Community Announcement notifications in September 2025, delivering alerts via the user's most engaged channel (Teams, Mobile Push, or Email) to reduce notification fatigue. Secondary notifications follow if unopened. This uses recent user behavior data and respects notification preferences. | Microsoft Viva Engage will roll out smarter Community Announcement notifications from mid-September to early November 2025, delivering alerts via one preferred channel based on user behavior, with a secondary channel if unopened. Immediate multi-channel email notifications remain available for urgent announcements. No admin action is required. |
| 2025-09-04 | MC Last Updated | 08/27/2025 23:41:49 | 2025-09-03T23:22:22Z |
| 2025-09-04 | MC Messages | Introduction
We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in early September 2025 and expect to complete the rollout by the end of September 2025. | Updated September 3, 2025: We have updated the timeline and content. Thank you for your patience.
Introduction We hear your feedback about ways we can improve the notifications experience in Viva Engage. It's always a fine balance between ensuring your users are notified of relevant content without notifications feeling too overwhelming or noisy. In response to your feedback, we're rolling out an intelligent notifications experience. Specifically, this change will improve how Community Announcement notifications are delivered. This smarter delivery approach optimizes notifications delivery based on a user's engagement behavior, helping to reduce notifications fatigue while ensuring timely visibility of announcements. When this will happen General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September 2025 and expect to complete the rollout by the early November 2025. |
| 2025-09-04 | MC Title | Microsoft Viva Engage: Smarter delivery of Community Announcement notifications | (Updated) Microsoft Viva Engage: Smarter delivery of Community Announcement notifications |
| 2025-09-04 | MC How Affect | Previously, when an admin created a new Community Announcement, this would send a notification in Teams and Mobile Push immediately, followed by an email notification two hours later if the announcement was not opened already in Teams and/or Mobile Push. With this new update:
Users will now receive the notification in one channel only-either Teams, Mobile Push, or Email. This notification channel may differ by user and is selected based on where a user has opened Engage notifications most frequently in the past 30 days. If the announcement is not opened within two hours in the first notification channel, a secondary notification channel will be sent, also determined by where a user opens Engage notifications most frequently. We will continue to respect all user notification preferences and settings where applicable. If a notification channel is disabled or the app is not installed, it will not be selected as a potential notification channel for the Community Announcement delivery. Note that this change applies only to regular Community Announcements in Viva Engage and does not affect the "essential" Community Announcement feature (where admins can still select the checkbox to send emails immediately -this functionality remains unchanged). What you can do to prepare No admin action is required. However, we recommend: Informing your users about the new notifications change to reduce confusion Monitoring user feedback and engagement with Community Announcements' notifications delivery Reviewing internal communication strategies to align with the new notification's behavior Compliance AreaExplanation Does the change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed?Yes. Notification delivery logic now uses user behavior data (last 30 days of notification engagement) to determine delivery channels. This data is used to personalize delivery but is not stored permanently. Does the change introduce or significantly modify AI/ML or agent capabilities that interact with or provide access to customer data?Yes. The system uses behavioral data to determine the most effective notification channel, which is a form of machine learning-based personalization. Does the change provide a new way of communicating between users, tenants, or subscriptions?Yes. The change modifies how users receive communications (Community Announcements) by introducing a dynamic, behavior-based delivery method. | Previously, when an admin created a new Community Announcement, this would send a notification in Teams and Mobile Push immediately, followed by an email notification two hours later if the announcement was not opened already in Teams and/or Mobile Push. With this new update:
Users will now receive the notification in one channel only-either Teams, Mobile Push, or Email. This notification channel may differ by user and is selected based on where a user has opened Engage notifications most frequently in the past 30 days. If the announcement is not opened within two hours in the first notification channel, a secondary notification channel will be sent, also determined by where a user opens Engage notifications most frequently. We will continue to respect all user notification preferences and settings where applicable. If a notification channel is disabled or the app is not installed, it will not be selected as a potential notification channel for the Community Announcement delivery. Note that this change applies only to regular Community Announcements in Viva Engage and does not affect the "immediate" Community Announcement feature (where admins can still select the checkbox to send emails immediately -this functionality remains unchanged). Can I still notify Community users via email immediately (along with other notification channels)? Yes! In Viva Engage, we offer an option to send an "immediate" Community Announcement. With this feature, Community admins can choose to send email notifications immediately after posting a Community Announcement, even if a user has opted out of receiving emails. All other notification channels will also send immediately along with email, including Teams and Mobile Push. Therefore, we recommend admins to use this feature when there is a Community Announcement that requires immediate attention from users. Community Admins can find this "immediate" Community Announcement option by firstly navigating to the announcement publisher and selecting the hyperlinked "option to send emails immediately" at the bottom of the publisher. Upon clicking this option, an additional pop-up box will open called "Immediate email delivery". By selecting this checkbox, this will ensure that all three notification channels - Email, Teams, and Mobile Push - will send to customers immediately after a Community Announcement is made. What you can do to prepare No admin action is required. However, we recommend: Informing your users about the new notifications change to reduce confusion Monitoring user feedback and engagement with Community Announcements' notifications delivery Reviewing internal communication strategies to align with the new notification's behavior Compliance AreaExplanation Does the change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed?Yes. Notification delivery logic now uses user behavior data (last 30 days of notification engagement) to determine delivery channels. This data is used to personalize delivery but is not stored permanently. Does the change introduce or significantly modify AI/ML or agent capabilities that interact with or provide access to customer data?Yes. The system uses behavioral data to determine the most effective notification channel, which is a form of machine learning-based personalization. Does the change provide a new way of communicating between users, tenants, or subscriptions?Yes. The change modifies how users receive communications (Community Announcements) by introducing a dynamic, behavior-based delivery method. |
Last updated 4 weeks ago ago
